


Literary Lad I love: Nathaniel/John Mandrake

by NRGmeta (NRGburst)



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRGburst/pseuds/NRGmeta
Summary: Originally posted on LJ; archiving here for March Meta Matters 2020.
Kudos: 6
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Literary Lad I love: Nathaniel/John Mandrake

Here's a brief character study on one of my oldest faves for the[ Literary Lads we Love](http://lisal825.livejournal.com/66270.html) carnival!  
  
Upon re-reading The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, I have to state again how highly I recommend this series, even to people who don’t normally read YA fantasy. It’s based on a universe where magicians abuse their magic powers as a rule, and there are no benevolent Gandalfs or Dumbledores looking out for the powerless. Because really- why would there be? The magic in this series isn’t some speshul inborn ability of the magicians- magic comes from spirits/djinni that magicians have learned to enslave, and everybody else is being crushed under their patent leather shoes as they fight amongst themselves for even more power and wealth.  
  
The protagonists are: a terrorist commoner, a pompous magician, and a snarkily superior djinni. And it’s engaging and well written- you’ll feel sympathy for all their POVs and note how Stroud seems to delight in subverting tropes and even breaking the fourth wall with humour and flair. The only thing I dislike about this series is how it ends. :P (But that's what [fix-it fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012231) are for.) There's also a prequel, "The Ring of Solomon", that was published a few years after "Ptolemy's Gate", which I won't be referring to since Nathaniel isn't in it.  
  
Nathaniel starts the series as a five-year-old boy, sold by his commoner parents to become a magician’s apprentice. And we watch as he is shaped to become one of the power hungry rulers through the series, from hero to anti-hero to anti-villain.  
  


Stroud uses the name= morality/staying true to yourself device quite explicitly. It’s established early on that magicians hide their birth names and assume new ones because true names can be used against them in magic the same way spirits are captured. Secrecy is touted as one of the keys to power (“Safe, Secret, Strong”). Forgetting your birth name and origins is a part of this, along with hidden alliances and coup plots. And yet Nathaniel is consistently characterized as being unable to let go of his true name, to be truly ruthless despite swimming among sharks and doing his best to become John Mandrake- a name that is equal halves anonymous and poisonous.

Nathaniel is very much in tune with his morality in “Amulet of Samarkand”, and he acts to uphold his ideals of right and wrong, outraged when he sees them violated. He refuses to accept the status quo even though he recognizes his youth and powerlessness (the book follows his apprentice training from age five to just after he turns eleven) in the face of them. But he’s ambitious, clever, and resentfully aware of “how peripheral he is to all [the] glamour and power” as an apprentice to his dull weakling of a master, who doesn’t recognize his potential or attempt to protect him from his more powerful colleagues. So he decides to seek revenge and bolster his power himself.

Naturally, his efforts all go to hell or there wouldn’t be a book, but he struggles with his morals when discrepancies are pointed out: Nathaniel selfishly enslaves djinni to gain enough power to fight back; feels blindly entitled to power despite the arbitrary nature of how he gained admission into the upper class. And yet we also understand how he has been taught to feel this way, how seductive the “lazy exhilaration of easy power” is. When he rejects the dishonourable way out and saves the day on his own merits, he stays firmly in the hero category, and his slave Bartimaeus tells him to guard both his conscience and his initiative --traits easily snuffed out of magicians-- before Nathaniel frees him as promised.

He’s less likeable in “The Golem’s Eye”- indeed, Stroud spends most of the novel portraying him as a flop, although he does still retain the reader’s sympathy for the most part. He’s an awkward teenager who is a slave to fashion, with developing sexuality and self esteem issues that trip him up despite his keen intelligence. He’s still mostly a pawn and his powerful master is just as willing to throw him under the bus as his powerless one in “Amulet”. It feels very much like he is caught in a web of his own making- a fourteen-year-old hungry for recognition and status with limited skills and no real allies. And yet he really has no other choice- magicians must swim or sink and he made himself a target by showing his abilities before cementing his position. Someone less vainglorious (or simply with a loyal master) would have had an easier time. “His master and career had worked an unpleasant alchemy upon him: he was harder, harsher and altogether more brittle.”

Nathaniel struggles with his conscience while he’s set with seemingly impossible tasks to save himself and his career. The easiest –and perhaps only-- path is deceit and power abuse, becoming the kind of magician he had hated so much in “Amulet”. In the end, we see him give in- breaking previous promises and rattling off orders of luxurious silks and enameling. Bartimaeus deems his transformation into John Mandrake the magician complete, scoffing. And yet he reveals that there is still a glimmer of Nathaniel under the Mandrake façade before the book closes.

Nathaniel is supposed to have transformed completely into John Mandrake in “Ptolemy’s Gate”, set three years later, and yet even as the book opens he seems poised on the path to redemption. It’s clear that he is still different from other magicians: he doesn’t use actual punishments on his slaves (although he threatens them), he finds the luxuries his peers indulge in frivolous and distasteful; he questions the decisions of the Prime Minister because they are harming the country and people and is courteous to commoners, helping him become “the most popular magician among [them]”. But the most obvious clue is Mandrake’s clinging to Bartimaeus, despite his weakened state. “All his old life—his vulnerable existence as the boy Nathaniel, the ideals he’d once espoused—was buried away deep down. Every link with his childhood was severed, except for [Bartimaeus].”

There’s also a change to his views on power now that he is one of the top dogs- he’s very aware of the _responsibility_ that holding power entails, whereas the other ministers are more concerned with holding their titles (and enjoying the accompanying luxuries) than doing their jobs. This contrasts with his heroic wishes in the previous books, where he wanted power more for recognition than anything else. Now he has everything he ever wanted- and it’s not what he really wanted at all. His hands are tied despite having power and authority at the top levels of government.

His redemptive journey back to reclaiming his birth name is one of the best I’ve ever read- years on it still sticks with me. Nathaniel is a pompous, self-serving, idealistic fool throughout the series, and both despite and because of that, he is one of my favourite male characters ever. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Original post is no longer active, but its backup is on [my DW here.](https://nrgburst.dreamwidth.org/56080.html)


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